So I was offered two jobs at the bank I work for. The main point of this thread was for me to celebrate the fact that I'm finally moving up. Let me give you guys some advice....don't misbehave at work especially if you work for a giant corporation. One cuss word in an email can set you back 2 years in your career advancement, even if you put forth the highest performance numbers in your department.

Job A - Finance job. Analyzing financial statements for commercial and agriculture loans. This is what I went to school for. It's a great stepping stone into more lucrative careers such as underwriting and lending management.

Job B - Problem solving job. Working across company lines to solve problems that have been escalated to the max level. I would be expected to use root-cause analysis and look at everything as a process. This is a promotion of my current field. A possible stepping stone for more lucrative careers in a lead role or as a project manager.

I'm a bit torn as to what I want to do. On one hand, I love exploring new areas and although I went to school for it, I have not worked in a finance/accounting related field. On the other hand, I do like solving problems and I seem to have natural talents for it too. Both of these jobs have the EXACT same pay scale, so it's really going to come down to some other factors. Here are my questions:

Which career do you think would be more lucrative and in-demand long-term?

Which career would give me more options if I wanted to move back to the (great) state of Washington?

Thanks in advance!

"Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force."

Well, there is quite a bit of agriculture in WA, maybe not so much financials. I would think you'd end up back east somewhere on that career path.

We have wine, fruit, wheat, small to medium farming, dairy among other things. We're not the national leader in many of those crop areas (except maybe apples) but they are good sized industries in the state. We also have commercial fisheries-maybe not strictly 'agriculture' but related. We still have a good sized timber industry as well. I would think that the market for comm/ag loans would be diversified and large.

But the financial sector would probably provide a better path to "lucrative and in demand." I don't really like that idea, but it's probably pretty close to fact.

Hope that helps a little. I'm sure our fellow posters have much more to add to that.

Best of luck to you!

Talent can get you to the playoffs.It takes character to win when you get there.SUPER BOWL XLVIII CHAMPIONS

I'm a Finance guy, and have used that to springboard myself in more of a problem-sloving, analytical, logistics, reporting role. My Finance start got me an audience with every aspect of business, from operations to marketing. And, at the end of the day, everything ties to finance. EVERYTHING.

I'm doing corporate culture reporting now, as an independent consultant, and if I have any questions about demographics or numbers I reach out to finance for the absolute answer. It all ends and begins in Finance.

Finance will make you more money in the long run, so long as you're not taking a bank teller's job. Huge money in lending, especially in agriculture where the government underwrites 99% of anything borrowed so long as it's on USDA terms.

Feel free to contact me if you need legal assistance. I have a great lawyer that helped me with an ex who violated my privacy and kept harassing me on MySpace and Facebook. He's very good. And there is legal precedent. - linuxpro